AMST 3100 The 1960s The Civil Rights Movement Part 1: the 1950s. Powerpoint 2 Read Chafe Chapter 6. The modern civil rights movement. Began in the mid-1950s Peaked in 1963 Splintered after 1965 into different camps Liberal reformers like M.L. King, Jr. who worked within the system

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AMST 3100 The 1960s The Civil Rights Movement Part 1: the 1950s

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Radicals like the Black Panthers and the black consciousness movement who rejected the system altogether

The split reflects growing realization by many blacks that “the establishment” was incapable of reforming itself quickly or sufficiently enough to accomplish “the Dream” that King referred to in his famous 1963 March on Washington speech.

1. Activists could not sustain a monolithic front beyond the mid-1960s.

Blacks were not one monolithic group of the same class, age, religion, geography, etc.

Blacks differed among themselves and so did the problems they faced.

Southern Jim Crow differed from inner city racism.

Older blacks were more moderate, while younger blacks were more impatient and open to radical ideologies.

By the mid-1960s, these differences could no longer be covered up and the movement split.

The last great civil rights march of the 1960s was the Selma March in March 1965 from Selma to Montgomery Alabama. The purpose of the march – just completed when this photo was taken - was to demonstrate the need for voting rights protections for racial minorities. A Voting Rights Act was passed in August 1965.

Traditional southern racism was based on large white landholders making blacks dependent on them for jobs.

Industrialization mechanized these farms and millions of blacks were pushed away. They went north and west and created new opportunities for themselves while becoming less dependent upon white landowners. Their economic independence made them bolder and able to challenge racism more openly.

Most cotton pickers felt highly dependent upon white landowners. This system helped sustain Jim Crow. Here, a civil rights activist is registering a field worker to vote during the Freedom Summer of 1964.

As the South became part of the emerging national culture, the Southern economy became increasingly dependent upon federal programs and contracts by the late 1950s.

By 1960, the Federal government had become an intervening force in American life.

It had begun to reappraise its role in protecting the liberties of everyone, including blacks.

Government policies reflected the rising tide of liberalism, with its faith that government can do good things for the people.

This is a photo of the Cannon Mills office in Kannapolis, NC., just before its demolition in 2005. Cannon Mills was a large textile manufacturing plant. During World War II, Cannon Mills was required by the federal government to hire blacks in order to receive a lucrative federal contract to make towels for the military. Such federal policies contributed to the gradual desegregation of the Southern workforce.

The Court agreed with the NAACP argument that separate schools were harmful to black children, who were denied an equal education.

Because the decision was so ground-breaking, Chief Justice Warren sought a unanimous decision. But the justices were not all liberals. To get them all to approve the decision, it was agreed that no timetable would be imposed for school desegregation.

While a unanimous Court ordered schools to desegregate (without imposing a timetable), President Eisenhower (a Republican) did not side with the Court’s decision and remained conspicuously silent on what should be done to desegregate the schools.

The Southern segregationists took heart from Ike’s reaction and resolved to fight desegregation. They formed Citizens Councils and resurrected the symbolism of the Civil War and “states rights.”

By 1960, 99% of Southern blacks continued to go to segregated schools.

The KKK enjoyed a resurgence after the Brown decision. Many angry Southerners organized to resist what they saw as federal intrusion into their local way of life. Many looked to the national leader, President Eisenhower, for guidance. However, Eisenhower was conspicuously silent about the Brown decision. Was this a failure of leadership at a crucial moment?

While there was variation in response across local school districts, state officials decided that the state would close any white school if integration occurred (if whites desired this) and offered to use taxes to fund segregated “safety valve” white alternative schools. The Charlotte Observer praised this decision for its “common sense.”

This threat was common across the South and was actually utilized in one of the Virginia school districts. There, all of the public schools were closed and the white children were sent to alternative schools.

The ambivalent role of Eisenhower’s federal government during the 1950s to enforce the Court’s desegregation order encouraged blacks to take matters into their own hands.

Southern schools remained segregated for years after the Brown decision. However, by 1957 some schools slowly began to integrate, often over the loud objections of angry whites. Still, even in 1960, schools remained almost entirely segregated.

Click here to read author James Baldwin’s 1957 interview about the desegregation of Charlotte’s Central High School.

The Brown decision gave blacks a great legal victory, but white resistance made it clear that real reform would require direct action on their part.

In 1955, a year after the Brown decision (and its lack of enforcement) Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person – as demanded by the Jim Crow laws - and was arrested. Black citizens organized a protest, and thus started the Montgomery bus boycott. The NAACP and the black church were important resources.

Rosa Parks sparked a new phase of the civil rights movement – the citizen activist phase in which ordinary people participate in public protests, organize, select leaders, mobilize resources, and work directly to change the system. Rosa used nonviolent civil disobedience to question the morality of Jim Crow laws.

2. It demonstrated the power of a unified, organized black community and showed that a mass citizen movement could work.

3. It produced an articulate and persuasive leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., who was brought in from Atlanta at age 26 to lead the boycott.

King is seen here being arrested for “loitering” in Montgomery Alabama in 1958. There were many Jim Crow laws aimed at racial minorities. They were not just about segregation. Some prohibited more than a few black people to stand together on the street, or to simply be present at a certain location. Typically blacks were required to get permits to engage in street protests, which would often be denied, resulting in arrests if they appeared on the street.

The success of the Montgomery bus boycott, and the elevation of King as the leader of the movement led to the formation by 1957 of the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), with King as its leader.

The SCLC adopted the basic goals and strategies of King himself and led the movement during the late 1950s.

Christian, church based (churches are excellent for organizing).

Citizen based: everyone, including black students, were encourage to get involved.

Nonviolent civil disobedience tactics were carefully taught.

Goal: End Jim Crow and work for desegregation and racial equality.

Very inspirational time– a sense of meaning and change was in the air, with NAACP, the SCLC, and new groups forming.

King speaking in Chicago, 1960. The SCLC was the premier citizen-based civil rights organization of the late 1950s. The NAACP had a more legalistic approach in its tactics.

Following the Brown decision, Little Rock adopted a plan for gradual integration, but white Citizens Councils opposed it, and Arkansas governor Orval Faubus threatened to use the state National Guard to prevent desegregation.

In 1957, 9 black students attempted to enter an all-white high school but were turned down by the Arkansas National Guard.

A threatening white crowd of 1000 gathered at the school forcing the 9 black youth to be evacuated.

The town mayor sent President Eisenhower a telegram requesting Federal troops for protection.

The President sent 1000 army troops and federalized the state National Guard. Under federal troop escort, the 9 children were allowed to enroll at the high School.

The incident forced the federal government’s hand, and Eisenhower finally (albeit reluctantly) had stood for federally enforced school desegregation.

This is the scene at Little Rock. Many angry whites viewed federal efforts to help blacks integrate into white schools as “special favors” given to non-whites. This attitude remains quite common on issues like affirmative action even today.